et non sapientior

…and there must be thousands of Drudgites scratching their heads and not trusting their lying eyes. In a quest for knowledge, they Google and find us, the subject matter experts. Tracking all this down, I’ve found some unintentionally hilarious quotes like this example:

“A very disturbing story as a Seattle man has died following a bizarre case of bestiality.“

(Good Lord, Jimmy Olsen ~ aren’t all bestiality cases…bizarre? It’s the nature of the…dare I say it?)
But for chock full o’ nuts hilarity, this article takes the cake.

Closing the Barn Door
The bizarre death of a man who had sex with a horse made dreadful headlines. State Sen. Pam Roach, R-Auburn, however, plans to continue her push for a law barring such acts, worried the case revealed “an animal sex ring, a magnet for syndication of the sexual abuse of animals. People came from outside this state to engage in this activity because people knew they wouldn’t be arrested.”

She should be worried ~ ‘Roaches’ are people, too.

…Urquhart of the sheriff’s office says that “typically,” men were having sex with a horse on Tait’s property, “but on this particular night it is my understanding that horse wasn’t particularly receptive.“

Everyone has a headache now and then.

…Tait and the man who later died both had sex with the neighbor’s horse that night, according to the charging papers. The second man died while Tait was videotaping the encounter. The tape was later shown to the couple that owns the barn so they could confirm it was their horse, known as Big Dick.

Comparatively speaking, that is. Around other horses down on the farm, Big Dick was often mocked for the relative puniness of his equippage.
Here’s where a well meaning elected official meddles in things she has no inkling of.

…Though she considered adding an Internet provision, she admits any such ban would be difficult to police—in part because the Internet is already teeming with animal-porn sites, such as Zoo Porn, which offers “zoo dating.“

Obviously the woman has never been in a Marine Corps Enlisted Club on payday night.

…But her final bill will have to be carefully written, she adds, to exclude some farm-sex acts.

Common sense rules at last. I mean, what if the horse comes on to you?
I know. Just say ‘neigh‘.

We’d had lots of smoking guns in Iraq that haven’t panned out too well, but this, if true, seems to be something even Nancy Pelosi can’t wish away:

WASHINGTON, Nov. 30, 2006 — U.S. officials say they have found smoking-gun evidence of Iranian support for terrorists in Iraq: brand-new weapons fresh from Iranian factories. According to a senior defense official, coalition forces have recently seized Iranian-made weapons and munitions that bear manufacturing dates in 2006.
This suggests, say the sources, that the material is going directly from Iranian factories to Shia militias, rather than taking a roundabout path through the black market. “There is no way this could be done without (Iranian) government approval,” says a senior official.
Iranian-made munitions found in Iraq include advanced IEDs designed to pierce armor and anti-tank weapons. U.S. intelligence believes the weapons have been supplied to Iraq’s growing Shia militias from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which is also believed to be training Iraqi militia fighters in Iran

Direct, hard evidence that Iran is killing US Troops, and also gaining priceless experience designing weapons that destroy our frontline troops and their vehicles. And while they are doing this we are supposed to “engage” them in a dialogue, give them an official say in the restructuring of Iraq, and, as a bonus if they call right now, operators are on duty, give them time to develop nuclear weapons. A mind-boggling strategy.
And bone-chillingly frightening.

Lawsuit stirs up guacamole labeling controversy
Kraft, which is not alone in putting little avocado in its product, is accused of duping consumers.
Peanut butter is made from peanuts, tomato paste is made from tomatoes, and guacamole is made from avocados, right?
Wrong. The guacamole sold by Kraft Foods Inc., one of the bestselling avocado dips in the nation, includes modified food starch, hefty amounts of coconut and soybean oils, and a dose of food coloring. The dip contains precious little avocado, but many customers mistake it for wholly guacamole.
On Wednesday, a Los Angeles woman sued the Northfield, Ill.-based food company, alleging that it committed fraud by calling its dip “guacamole.” Her lawyer says suits against other purveyors of “fake guacamole” could be filed soon.
The suit, which seeks class-action status, highlights the liberty some food companies take in labeling their products.
If consumers read the fine print, they would discover that Kraft Dips Guacamole contains less than 2% avocado*. But few of them do. California avocado growers, who account for 95% of the nation’s avocado crop, said they didn’t know that store-bought guacamole contained little of their produce.

* If I remember the ingredient panel, Miracle Whip also contains “less than 2%” edible ingredients. Coincidentally, both are Kraft products.
Go figure.

Several sheriff’s deputies in Polk County, Fla., are being credited with saving the life of a 45-year-old man who was attacked by an alligator early Wednesday and was being pulled deeper into a lake, according to a police report. Authorities said the Polk County Sheriff’s Office received multiple calls at about 3:30 a.m. Wednesday concerning screams for help coming from an area of Lake Parker County Park near the Moose Lodge on East Lake Parker Drive.

Whale attacks trainer during show at SeaWorld in San Diego
…”He was pulled down at least twice by the whale and then let go,” Luque said. “He did not have life-threatening injuries. He was conscious the whole time.”

They executed the alligator who chomped the crackhead (apparently Bingley-style, he was naked and high)(the chompee, not the gator), but Shamu’s a high dollar blubber butt and got away with it yet again.
What is causing nearly simultaneous, bi-coastal water creature attacks? First it was stingrays thousands of miles apart in synchronous poking and now tandem ‘pulling’? It’s not bears and it’s not lions and it’s not angry squirrels.
It’s things that swim…

I’d watch that shower drain a little more closely first thing in the morning and have something besides a bar of soap handy…UPDATE : Holy CRAP!! We’re doomed!! Eagle eyed Swiller CJ just sent me these horrifying news reports!!

California sea lions attack humans
Tourists flock to Fisherman’s Wharf for the seafood and the stunning views of San Francisco Bay, but for many visitors, the real stars are the dozens of playful, whiskered sea lions that lounge by the water’s edge, gulping down fish.
Now a series of sea-lion attacks on people in recent months has led experts to warn that the animals are not as cute and cuddly as they appear.

Democrats Reject Key 9/11 Panel Suggestion
Neither Party Has an Appetite for Overhauling Congressional Oversight of Intelligence
It was a solemn pledge, repeated by Democratic leaders and candidates over and over: If elected to the majority in Congress, Democrats would implement all of the recommendations of the bipartisan commission that examined the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
But with control of Congress now secured, Democratic leaders have decided for now against implementing the one measure that would affect them most directly: a wholesale reorganization of Congress to improve oversight and funding of the nation’s intelligence agencies. Instead, Democratic leaders may create a panel to look at the issue and produce recommendations, according to congressional aides and lawmakers.

They’re the chosen ones and the WaPo is after them already?
Hang on, children. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Isn’t it great NOT to be the homeliest kid in class any more? (Although, as I pointed out to Bingley, the little blonde front row, third from the right looks suspiciously like Amy Carter. Bingley said all those Southerners are close, trailer park-wise and I should ask Cracker if I don’t believe him.)
(We don’t know who did this ~ not Bubba, we mean the Photoshop ~ but whoEVER it was, he’s a sick and twisted…genius.)

IHOP will stop carding customers for pancakes
Mass. outlet wanted to stop dine-and-dashers, headquarters apologizes
John Russo has been a victim of identity theft. So when he was asked to fork over a photo ID just to be seated at an IHOP pancake restaurant, he flipped.
“You want my license? I’m going for pancakes, I’m not buying the Hope diamond,’ and they refused to seat us,” Russo said, recounting his experience this week at the Quincy IHOP.
The restaurant now has agreed to reverse the policy of requiring customers to turn over their driver’s licenses before they can order — a rule that was enacted to discourage “dine and dash” thefts.

He said the security guard who asked for his license had forty others in his mitt already. For pancakes.
We’re doomed.

…of a chairmanship might be gone, but his law abiding spirit is alive and well in the heart of Dem-o-ville.

Cintas warned against firing immigrant force
A Mississippi Democrat in line to become chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee has warned the nation’s largest uniform supplier it faces criminal charges if it follows a White House proposal to recheck workers with mismatched Social Security numbers and fire those who cannot resolve the discrepancy in 60 days.
Rep. Bennie Thompson said in a letter to Cintas Corp. it could be charged with “illegal activities in violation of state and federal law” if any of its 32,000 employees are terminated because they gave incorrect Social Security numbers to be hired.
“I am deeply troubled by Cintas’ recent policy change regarding the Social Security Administration’s ‘no match’ letters,” Mr. Thompson said in the Nov. 2 letter. “It is my understanding that hundreds of Cintas’ immigrant workers have received these letters. I am extremely concerned about any potentially discriminatory actions targeting this community.”

Man accused of spray-painting three goats‘Obviously it’s not an occurrence you see every day,*’ officer says
A man broke into a barn on Thanksgiving morning, spray-painted three pet goats and scattered pages of pornographic magazines on the floor, apparently to harass the property owner, police said Tuesday.

At a recent White House reception for freshman members of Congress, Virginia’s newest senator tried to avoid President Bush. Democrat James Webb declined to stand in a presidential receiving line or to have his picture taken with the man he had often criticized on the stump this fall. But it wasn’t long before Bush found him.
“How’s your boy?” Bush asked, referring to Webb’s son, a Marine serving in Iraq.
“I’d like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President,” Webb responded, echoing a campaign theme.
“That’s not what I asked you,” Bush said. “How’s your boy?”
“That’s between me and my boy, Mr. President,” Webb said coldly, ending the conversation on the State Floor of the East Wing of the White House.

What a goddamned ill-mannered primadona. There is no excuse for such outright rudeness at your first meeting with the President, a social gathering for god’s sake, not some policy debate you crass turd.

“I’m not particularly interested in having a picture of me and George W. Bush on my wall,” Webb said in an interview yesterday in which he confirmed the exchange between him and Bush. “No offense to the institution of the presidency, and I’m certainly looking forward to working with him and his administration. [But] leaders do some symbolic things to try to convey who they are and what the message is.”

You have indeed offended the institution of the Presidency, and the Senate, and good manners in general. I hope your mamma bends you over her knees and tans your pasty backside but good.

U.S. Bans Sale of iPods to North Korea
Bush administration wants North Korea’s attention, so like a scolding parent it’s trying to make it tougher for that country’s eccentric leader to buy iPods, plasma televisions and Segway electric scooters.
The U.S. government’s first-ever effort to use trade sanctions to personally aggravate a foreign president expressly targets items believed to be favored by Kim Jong Il or presented by him as gifts to the roughly 600 loyalist families who run the communist government

Islamic sharia law is gaining an increasing foothold in parts of Britain, a report claims.
Sharia, derived from several sources including the Koran, is applied to varying degrees in predominantly Muslim countries but it has no binding status in Britain.
The Koran is one of the sources that Sharia derives from.
However, the BBC Radio 4 programme Law in Action produced evidence yesterday that it was being used by some Muslims as an alternative to English criminal law. Aydarus Yusuf, 29, a youth worker from Somalia, recalled a stabbing case that was decided by an unofficial Somali “court” sitting in Woolwich, south-east London.
Mr Yusuf said a group of Somali youths were arrested on suspicion of stabbing another Somali teenager. The victim’s family told the police it would be settled out of court and the suspects were released on bail.

There’s a stabbing, and the police let the people “work it out themselves”? It seems to me that’s what led to the stabbing in the first place.

Sharia’s great strength was the effectiveness of its penalties, he said. Those who appeared before religious courts would avoid re-offending so as not to bring shame on their families.

Hey, that’s true! All those women in that soccer stadium in Afghanistan never “brought shame on their families” again, now did they? And neither did those “whores” in Germany; regular pillars of community virtue, they are now.

Faizul Aqtab Siddiqi, a barrister and principal of Hijaz College Islamic University, near Nuneaton, Warwicks, said this type of court had advantages for Muslims.(No shit! Really?) “It operates on a low budget, it operates on very small timescales and the process and the laws of evidence are far more lenient and it’s less awesome an environment than the English courts,” he said.

Ah yes, those lenient laws of evidence.
England needs to decide very quickly if it wants to remain an independent country. People who move there must adopt English rules and laws, or it’s all over folks.

Is nothing sacred to you people in the pursuit of the almighty dollar? Her grinning, Joker-like visage on Triscuits is bad, but you have crossed a line now, my friends.
I’m goin’ over to the dwarves tree elves.
And these guys.

Witnesses said three of the imams were praying loudly in the concourse and repeatedly shouted “Allah” when passengers were called for boarding US Airways Flight 300 to Phoenix.
“I was suspicious by the way they were praying very loud,” the gate agent told the Minneapolis Police Department.
Passengers and flight attendants told law-enforcement officials the imams switched from their assigned seats to a pattern associated with the September 11 terrorist attacks and also found in probes of U.S. security since the attacks — two in the front row first-class, two in the middle of the plane on the exit aisle and two in the rear of the cabin.
“That would alarm me,” said a federal air marshal who asked to remain anonymous. “They now control all of the entry and exit routes to the plane.”

That would be our iconic, 40 year old Krispy Kreme donut shop ~ it of the swooping roofline and “HOT” sign. Supposedly it’ll open again but, like Tony Bourdain says, ‘closed for remodeling/vacation’ is often a death notice. At the very least, critical condition/ICU.
And like the friendly neighborhood watering hole types they are, Krispy Kreme is treating it’s long time Pensacola employees with all the love and respect the corporate offices can muster.

…All current managers will stay on the payroll, said Smith, but production workers and wait staff — many with 20 to 30 years’ experience — will be required to go through a rehiring process to retain their old jobs.
Smith said laid-off employees will be given severance pay and are eligible for unemployment, and those rehired will retain their seniority.
But some employees are skeptical about the rehiring process.
“When Krispy Kreme came down here to meet with us, I thought they’d have a (human resources) person with them. But they didn’t,” said Roderick West, a 13-year production employee at the shop. “They just told us we could go to work at the Krispy Kreme in Destin, but you’d have to commute, and that doesn’t make sense.”
West, who works part time at a local furniture store, said he wasn’t sure he wants to return to Krispy Kreme.
“You’ve got people that have been there 33 years, and all they’re getting is two weeks’ severance. I just don’t think it’s right the way they’re doing it,” he said.

Me neither. I think Krispy Kremes may be a hard sell here after this.
I hope so.

The ‘cookie monster’ in question refers to a particular confection a California chain called ‘Baxter’s’ used to have on it’s menu ~ a LARGE chocolate chip cookie covered with vanilla ice cream and hot fudge. They were divine and, in our youth, eaten completely by one individual. It also became the rallying cry Kcruella and I shrieked at each other when temptation would waggle it’s finger. (We were Marines, after all ~ height/weight standards CAN be useful.) We’d be close to surrender (“YOU deserve it!” “No, YOU do!” “We can split one and drink water!” “Waitress…!“), only to have a human of monsterous proportions waddle by. We were saved.
Now that the Marine Corps no longer has any interest in my waistline, the passage of time ~ and making my meager living sitting on my tookus ~ has required my military cheesecake photo to carry a “many cheesecakes ago” warning label in the spirit of complete disclosure. So it was with some personal interest that I dove into an article major dad pointed out to me yesterday in Pravda. It really was astonishing.

Big People on Campus
ASK Sheana Director for a detailed description of herself, and chances are the word fat will come up. It is not uttered with shame or ire or any sense of embarrassment; it’s simply one of the things she is, fat.
“Why should I be ashamed?” said Ms. Director, 22, a graduate student in women’s studies at San Diego State University, who wields the word with both defiance and pride, the way the gay community uses queer. “I’m fat. So what?”
…Even as science, medicine and government have defined obesity as a threat to the nation’s health and treasury, fat studies is emerging as a new interdisciplinary area of study on campuses across the country and is gaining interest in Australia and Britain. Nestled within the humanities and social sciences fields, fat studies explores the social and political consequences of being fat.
For most scholars of fat, though, it is not an objective pursuit. Proponents of fat studies see it as the sister subject — and it is most often women promoting the study, many of whom are lesbian activists — to women’s studies, queer studies, disability studies and ethnic studies. In many of its permutations, then, it is the study of a people its supporters believe are victims of prejudice, stereotypes and oppression by mainstream society.

There’s a bit more information coming out about your prayer flight. And it’s looking like you might not be the innocent, aggrieved holy men you claim to be.

Airline checks claim of ‘Muslim while flying’ discrimination
A passenger who had seen them pray passed a note expressing concern to a flight attendant, US Airways spokeswoman Andrea Rader told The Associated Press.
The passenger thought the imams — who were speaking in Arabic and English — had made anti-U.S. statements before boarding and “made similar statements while boarding,” said Russ Knocke, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security.
Once on board, Knocke said, the six split up into groups of two and did not sit in their assigned seats.

Anyone can get booted off a plane for that, especially when they refuse to return to their ticketed seat. So that’s on you. As one of your ignorant-about-Islam fellow passengers says in an interview, while she didn’t see what transpired on the plane, she’d noticed you guys already.

“I saw them in the terminal before we boarded the plane and then they all sat in different seats….I saw them before they got on the plane and then I saw them standing up on the plane…They were all huddled together but when they started boarding, right before they started boarding, they all separated from each other…”

You, too,can pardon a turkey
This Thanksgiving, President Bush will pardon a turkey to promote the turkey industry. Each of us has the same power to pardon a turkey, to promote kindness and compassion.
The 300 million turkeys abused and slaughtered in the U.S. each year have nothing to give thanks for. They breathe toxic fumes in crowded sheds. Their beaks and toes are severed. Slaughterhouse workers cut their throats and dump them into boiling water, sometimes still conscious.
Turkeys do get their revenge. Their flesh is laced with cholesterol and saturated fats that elevate the risk of chronic disease. Government warning labels are provided to avoid food poisoning.
This Thanksgiving, my holiday meal may include a soy “turkey,” lentil or nut roast, stuffed squash, corn chowder, candied yams, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie and carrot cake. An Internet search on “vegetarian Thanksgiving” will provide more mail-order items and recipes than I’ll ever need.

Thank you for that cheerful note laden with helpful hints, Mr. Tofurkey Q. Killjoy.
The worst part is, this is one of the more coherent letters today.